The Narrow Way passes through the City of Vanity Fair, the city that…

… never sleeps – where every day is Carnival day!

.

Long ago, the city fathers dug a lake and built a boardwalk around it, where sellers’ stalls and amusement rides were set up and kept open all year –

~ The Carnival of Earthly Delights ~

The Truly Very Odd Guys, the city’s oldest civic organization, keeps the venture going, while the Faithful Remnant walks the boards, distributing tracts, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and sometimes laying down their lives for their testimony to Him.

Some of the amusements

Funhouse: Hall of Deliberate Distortions

Fright House: “Come one – come all! Be scared to death (for fun)! Watch predators devour one another, and people too!”

Rollercoasters: The Great Upside-Down Accident Waiting to Happen; the Stories-High Tragedy About to Occur; and for the children, the Kiddies’ Impending Tragedy

Public Executions: Stake, scaffold, guillotine.

..

Vanity Fair boardwalk

.

Gleaming taffy stretched and folded

on shiny armatures never at rest,

Cotton Candy – sweetly spun nothingness,

Peanuts and trash – feast for gulls,

Bulging dumpsters always waiting

for a trip outside the city

to a dire mountain-in-the-making,

Drunken aftermath – shards of bottle glass,

Sand trucked in and dumped

to make a sort of beach.

.

Local attractions

Mother of Harlots Sports Bar and Grill

Daughters of the Mother Escort Service

The Lose Your Wife, House, and Custody of the Kids at A Roll of the Dice Casino

The Try Your Best to Beat the System and Fail Casino

In Vanity Fair, they’ve built replicas of many of the world’s wonders and some of the principal landmarks of its cities – from Florence to Dodge to the Great Pyramid.

.

They have even engineered

gigantic wheels

to ascend the skies

and view the glittering carnage.

.

They’ve been so foolish, too, as to construct a rollercoaster on the outside walls of the upper stories of a hotel. They’ve aped an Eiffel Tour and some backstreets of Paris (sort of). The lagoons of Venice and singing gondoliers? Well, I guess, we can have those too. We can have it all – all we could ever crave! The cost?

our souls

Since you must pass through Vanity Fair on the way to the Celestial City, remember that it is better to die in Vanity Fair, than to be deceived by its promises.

For Jesus said,

.

Luke 12:4-5

And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Anita, thank you! Before writing this, I had wanted to reread the Vanity Fair section of Pilgrim’s Progress, but I was just so intense about writing this that I didn’t wait to do that. May this help someone a little!